Handwriter Manta is a pen input device for Windows. $250 from Communication Intelligence Corp., , (888) 832-0242. [Mobile Computing and Communications, 11/96. NewtNews.]

The pen computer market is now $1B/year. . [Pen Computing, 9/96. NewtNews.]

Acer plans to license the "WisdomPen" Chinese Handwriting Recognition System from Motorola's Lexicus Division, for the Taiwanese market. Lexicus has also announced software able to recognize continuous Chinese speech. [iNews. NewtNews, 11/12/96 and 11/19/96.]

Apple has released their Mac OS Cantonese Dictation Kit 1.0. . [iNews. NewtNews, 11/12/96.]

Voice Pilot is a speech recognition system able to transcribe dictation (e.g., online chat) at 140 wpm, and to translate to other languages. Available mid-1997 on OS/2, then Windows, for $200-$300. Developed by Voice Pilot Technologies and IBM. Rolph Rudestam, 909-585-6122. [Patrick McKenna, clari.tw.computers.pc.software, 11/21/96. Bill Park.]

Kamejima Co. Ltd. (Tokyo) now offers E-J Bank and J-E Bank Japanese translation software, for 50K yen. The Windows 95/NT packages have a 500K-word dictionary and 7K grammar rules. , +81-3-3798-4838, +81-3-3798-4839 Fax. [Martyn Williams, clari.tw.computers.pc.software, 11/21/96. Bill Park.]